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Dispatch → Bulletin → Policy
Intelligence Apparatus of the TSPR (WIP)
TAI INSTITUTE FOR METEOROLOGY, WEATHER SERVICE DIVISION
1972 logo; unclear if new logo issued in an official capacity but this and a number of other logos continues to appear on multiple reports compiled by the Service.
Formed : 1950 (as Royal Thai National Security Agency)
1971 (Reformed as the Thai Meteorological Service)
1975 (Establishment of the Tai Institute for Meteorology)
Headquarters : Ratchadaphisek, Bangkok
Scope of Operations : Black operations, Counter-Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Cyber-warfare, Counter-terrorism
Budget : 3.44 billion USD (as per the 2023 governmental budget)
Employees : 3,800 (estimated, 2018)
About the Institute :
The Royal Thai National Security Agency was formed in 1950 using leftover counter-insurgency elements of the Royal Thai Army stationed in Thai-occupied areas in Malaya, Denwah, and elsewhere during the Pacific War, to suppress communist, socialist, and democratic elements believed to have been funded by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. In 1971, however, fears that the Agency was being used to further the goals of opponents of longtime Prime Minister Thanom Kittakachorn caused the National Assembly to dissolve the service under the auspices of anti-communism.
The military complied, and the RTNSA was dissolved de-facto, with several prominent members arrested on fabricated charges and the service effectively neutered. Thereafter, the agency was officially renamed, touted and classified as a civilian wing of the Royal Thai Meteorological Service, responsible for the delivering of accurate weather forecasts to government-run news networks and airports. The Service consumed a large portion of the Military's budget, but despite the decapitation of its command structure it served the regime well, forecasting movements of the Tai People’s Liberation Army in the countryside. Competing intelligence agencies, having gained the political favour of the Prime Minister, unsatisfied with the success of the Service, orchestrated the dismantling of the organisation and the arrest of leading members amidst the chaos of the 1973 Thai uprising. Having been made aware of the plot weeks prior, much of the Weather Service defected to the communists, fleeing to the countryside. Continued usage of the Service’s reports even after the ousting is believed to have resulted in several major defeats in the opening battles of the Thai Civil War.
Members of the Service were initially subordinated to the TCP’s own intelligence agency, the 17th Communications Corps, though with the fall of the Royalist government, and the threat of anti-communist powers such as Denwah, the Weather Service, despite their anti-communist background, were considerably well-versed in their speciality in black operations and general ruthlessness, and so detached from the 17th Corps and established as the Weather Service Division of the Tai Institute for Meteorology; an innocuous name. The Weather Service operated largely with impunity both domestically and abroad, eliminating leading figures of the Royalist-Government-in-Exile in locations as far away as the United States and Japan. The Service has also been credited with the brutal suppression of Royalist cells across the newly-formed TSPR, and performed infiltration of neighbouring anti-communist militaries and civil services. During the Sino-Vietnamese War, the Service deployed several special operations squads against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and were noted for their savagery, regular instances of war crimes, and effective and efficient sabotage operations.
The Shinawatra Administration saw the winding down of operations across East and South-East Asia throughout the 2000s, to the extent that whole spy rings were being sold out for increased diplomatic standing with former adversaries. The Service carried out several clandestine extractions of agents without the approval or knowledge of the General Secretary, and on several occasions provided false information to the government on the composition and location of their spy networks. The Service uncovered plans for the May Coup within a few days of the TPLA’s decision to execute it, though it remained initially neutral and did not act against it, earning it leverage within the Emergency Regime against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ more orthodox External Intelligence Department.
The rapidly evolving geopolitical climate following the coup enabled the Weather Service to massively expand their operations across Asia and beyond, as the government pivoted from a complete capitulation to Western capital to a policy of limited anti-imperialism, and old enemies re-emerged.
Today, the Weather Service remains the TSPR’s premier tool of precision and very first line of defense against those that threaten to smother the people’s revolution; the scalpel to the External Intelligence Department’s hammer.
The amount of actual control Bangkok retains over the Service itself is, however, debatable; arguably a state within a state, the Service operates under layers of secrecy and answers, nominally, to no one but the General Secretary. It has been employed and has employed itself to act against enemies of the Tai people, either in brutal or incredibly covert fashion; several disappearances of prominent Tai royalist assets overseas is believed to have been tied by the KKMR to the Weather Service, though no evidence of any kind has been presented, and indeed no nation has presented any to Bangkok.
The Service operates largely similarly to western services such as the CIA during the Vietnam War, and such understanding has perhaps been instrumental in the Service’s operations to identify and silence CIA assets within the TSPR from 2017-2020, one of the Service’s most successful operations to date.
EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
As a component of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department utilises the standard governmental seal.
Formed : 1975 (Tai Security Agencies Act 1975)
Headquarters : Dusit, Bangkok
Scope of Operations : Counter-Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Cyber-warfare, Counter-terrorism
Budget : 4.9 billion USD (as per the 2023 governmental budget)
Employees : 9,200
Established alongside other major intelligence agencies of the TSPR as part of the Security Agencies Act 1975, the External Intelligence Department represents Tailand's more heavy-handed espionage and influence attempts, particularly within South East Asia.
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